Review: Lovebites

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Images credit: Danielle Lyonne

POSTED: 19 NOVEMBER 2009

Lovebites, by Peter Rutherford & James Millar

BITE & White Box | Seymour Centre, Chippendale, Sydney | Until 5 December

Writers Peter Rutherford and James Millar have conceived a very interesting and quite novel concept with LoveBites.

Let’s take six different — very different —love affairs, set them to song, look, mainly from one participant’s viewpoint, at how they started, then come back after intermission and let the other protagonist loose on how it all worked out, or didn’t.

James Millar, whose performance in Ensemble Theatre’s The Little Dog Laughed earlier this year absolutely enthralled me, is joined on stage by Amelia Cormack, David Harris and Sophia Ragavelas.

In terms of musical-theatre and general-acting experience, they’re indeed a formidable quartet whose CVs I won’t even begin to list.

Fine voices are an obvious requirement for this sort of production, but they are not enough. Stage presence and acting ability are just as important. In the case of LoveBites, these four actors provide the complete package.

They’re assisted very commendably by Kim Hardwick (director), Nick Christo (assistant director), Martin Kinnane (stage designer) and especially musical director Chris Cartner, who also tickles the ivories wonderfully well throughout the whole performance.

LoveBites is a roller-coaster ride of emotions. There are lots and lots of laughs, but there’s great tenderness as well, in some moments tear-swelling pathos.

This is a lovely piece of theatre — well, actually six pieces of theatre — that will, I’m sure, take anyone and everyone back to some point in their love life.

In the end, all I could say was “Shit! This is good!” Why? You’ll have to see for yourself.

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